If you would take up your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 12, you can find that on page 871 in the Bibles located in the pew in front of you. And we are making our way through this central section of the gospel of Luke as Jesus makes His way to Jerusalem. And Jesus is headed to the cross, He is facing the opposition of the religious leaders, and in this section you may have noticed that His teaching takes a bit of an edge to it. Jesus offers some strong rebukes, some serious warnings in these chapters. And that’s true of our passage tonight as well. Jesus deals with money and covetousness, with worry and with judgment. And if we’re not unsettled in some way by Jesus’ teaching, then we’re probably not really listening to what He is saying.
If you remember from last week, we saw that a crowd of many thousands of people had gathered together around Jesus in chapter 12 verse 1. And He began to speak first to His disciples and then a man came up to Him. A man from the crowd speaks up and asks Jesus for help with a problem in his family. And that’s where we pick up tonight in verse 13. But before we read, let’s ask God’s help and blessing on the reading and preaching of His Word. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for this Gospel, this good news about Jesus. We thank You for Jesus our Teacher, and Jesus our Savior, our Lord and our King. Help us to submit our will to His will, to seek to live obediently to what You have to teach us in this passage tonight. We ask for Your Holy Spirit in applying the truth to our lives and enabling us to live it out for Your glory. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 12, starting in verse 13:
“Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.’ But he said to him, ‘Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?’ And he said to them, ‘Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.’ And he told them a parable, saying, ‘The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.’
And he said to his disciples, ‘Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you anxious about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass, which is alive in the field today, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried. For all the nations of the world seek after these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, seek his kingdom, and these things will be added to you.
Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.’
Peter said, ‘Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?’ And the Lord said, ‘Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time? Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will set him over all his possessions. But if that servant says to himself, ‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the male and female servants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and put him with the unfaithful. And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’
He also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
In a speech in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower said, “I have two kinds of problems – the urgent and the important.” And he said, “The urgent are not important and the important are never urgent.” Now his quote has been changed and morphed somewhat over the years. It’s actually been turned into a time management technique that is sometimes called, “The Eisenhower Matrix,” and you’re supposed to gauge and to spend, to prioritize your time on those things which are most important and urgent. But again, that’s not exactly what Eisenhower said, but those two categories, the urgent and the important, provide a good way to look at this passage from Luke chapter 12. By the way, I actually could have used the same outline as last week, “Watch Out” and “Fear Not” because we find Jesus saying similar things in this passage. In verse 15, He says, “Take care and be on your guard against covetousness.” And in verse 32 He says, “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Now I say that just to point out that there are clear connections between this passage and the one that we looked at last week. And if last week’s passage was about the contrast between the outside or the externals versus the heart, then these verses are about right now versus forever. But both of those things relate to discipleship. In fact, one commentator says that, “Disciples are the major concern of Luke chapter 12.”
So what can we learn about discipleship from the urgent and the important? Well the pressing need, the issue that demanded an immediate attention from Jesus was a dispute between two brothers over their inheritance. And a man in the crowd says to Jesus in verse 13, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Now this seems like such a classic case of “wrong time and wrong place” that it’s almost funny how this man blurts that out in this situation. You remember that the Pharisees and the lawyers are upset at Jesus and Jesus has just warned His disciples about the danger that is to be coming their way. And there was this big crowd of people; thousands of people had gathered together around Jesus. They were almost trampling one another, and it’s right in the middle of all of that commotion that this man decides to bring up what is really a private family matter.
But then again, what’s more important than family? Is it not a worthy cause to protect the bond of brothers? And maybe nothing threatens the bond of brothers like an inheritance dispute. It’s a tale as old as time. In fact, think about it. It was an inheritance dispute that had a foundational role in the history and the formation of the Hebrew people going all the way back to the conflict between Jacob and Esau. I was actually talking to a member of the congregation this week and his brother and he asked me, “What are you preaching on this weekend?” and I paused and hesitated because I thought that this could make an awkward turn to talk about an inheritance conflict between brothers. And I said, “I’m preaching on Luke chapter 12, the man who comes to Jesus and asks Him to help his brother divide the inheritance with him.” And they sort of laughed and they had just been talking about the very same thing with another sibling and about an issue on that side of the family. A conflict over an inheritance. It’s no surprise that this is still an issue today. And I know that there are people right here, right now, who have experienced the pain and the grief that comes with a fight over parents’ money. And it’s not just a money issue, is it? It’s packed with emotional trauma as well.
But what does Jesus say? What does Jesus say in response to this man’s request for help? Verse 14, He says, “Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” Now it’s not just that Jesus is being dismissive; He’s not being insensitive to this man’s problem. He actually addresses this man’s problem head-on. But it’s just that the reason for Jesus’ coming and the whole purpose for His ministry is about something that is much more important than an estate distribution. Sure, the inheritance is urgent. It’s the front burner matter or issue for this man, and it has immediate implications on this man’s immediate circumstances, but, Jesus says, “Take care and be on guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not insist in the abundance of his possessions.”
What’s Jesus saying? He’s saying life is about a whole lot more than money and stuff. He goes on and He broadens the category somewhat to include the body and food and clothing. He says in verse 23, “Life is more than food and the body more than clothing.” But sometimes doesn’t it feel like that is what life is all about? About possessions and the body and food and clothing? What is it that occupies so much of our time? There are bills to pay and there are groceries to buy. The hamper is full and there are clothes to be washed and dried and folded and put away. There is a meal to prepare and dishes to clean and the garbage to take out. And before too long, it’s going to happen all over again. And so much of our time is focused on these very things.
There was a sitcom on TV several years ago and in one episode one of the characters who was a mailman talked about the tyranny of the mail. And he said, “The mail never stops.” He said, “And every day it piles up and you’ve got to get it out, but the more you get it out, the more it comes in; the more it comes in, the more you’ve got to get it out. It’s relentless!” And the tyranny of the urgent is like that as well. It’s constant. It’s unrelenting. And if you’re not busy taking care of some of those very things like food, clothing and possessions, then maybe it’s that you’re busy getting your hair done or your nails done or your face done. Or maybe it’s getting a new toy for the hunting camp or the golf course or your condo. But Jesus says life is about more than that. It’s about more than wealth and diet and fashion.
But what would our credit card bills say? What about our schedules? What about our conversations? What would they say about what our life is mostly about? There’s a t-shirt that you can get in New Orleans and it’s about New Orleans and it’s a simple shirt with a plate on the front with some words on it. And the words say, “Let’s eat lunch and talk about what’s for dinner.” Now that sounds like the good life, doesn’t it? That sounds like what we would like to do. We would like to go to New Orleans and eat a po-boy and talk about getting BBQ shrimp for dinner. I’m sorry, that’s a little cruel to talk about at dinner time. I understand! But we are living in a material world and we all live more materialistic, hand to mouth, for the moment lives than we would probably realize or even care to admit.
But what’s the problem with living like that? Well Jesus tells a parable. It was a parable about covetousness, verse 15. Now the Greek word for “covetousness” is “pleonexia.” I just learned this week that “pleonexia” is an English word as well. You won’t find it on dictionary.com but you will find it on the grandiloquentwordoftheday.com; it’s not a word that you use very much. But “pleonexia,” it means something like “an insatiable desire to have.” One person has defined it as “an accursed love of having which will pursue its own interests with complete disregard for the rights of others and even for the considerations of common humanity.” So in this parable, Jesus’ parable, this rich man whose land produced plentifully, he had covetousness or “pleonexia.” He was so consumed with the accumulation and the enjoyment of his own goods that he had no regard for the condition of his soul. He planned to sit back, to relax, to eat, to drink, to be merry for many years when in fact his soul was to be required of him that very night. You see, he was a fool. He was a fool because he had laid up treasure for himself and was not rich toward God. Covetousness, greed like this is damning. It’s that serious.
And at the same time, it leads to worry. Some of the worries or the anxieties that Jesus talks about in these verses, verses 24 to 30, are things like, “Will I have enough?” and “Will what I have be good enough?” and “How long will it last anyway?” You see, a life that is focused on the here and now is usually not satisfied with the “now” and it’s always afraid of how long the “here” is going to last. That’s worry. That’s the worry that comes with the abundance of possessions. Now I’m not going to make a habit of quoting rappers from the pulpit, but Biggie was right when he said, “Mo’ money, mo’ problems!” And that’s some of what we find here in this passage. And the biggest problem of all is missing what God is doing. Jesus says, “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” And the problem with that, the problem with earthly treasure, the problem with a worldly heart is slothfulness. Some other words you could call it are words like “apathy, dullness, unpreparedness.”
And so Jesus tells a few parables about those things as well. In one of them, He talks about men who are to be prepared for their master to return from a wedding feast. In another parable, He talks about a household manager who is to carry out his duties and his responsibilities in a diligent and a faithful way. But in both of those parables, the emphasis is on not letting appearances and not letting current circumstances, the “now,” distract from the demands of the big picture. In other words, they are about not living by sight but living by faith. The biggest demand, the biggest danger of a life that is dictated by the demands for the moment – yes, there is the self-destructive love of money, yes, there is worry – but the biggest danger of the urgent is to be so controlled by today, it’s to be so controlled by our senses and our desires that we forget what it means to be a disciple in the kingdom of God. The biggest danger is to miss Jesus and to miss His blessings and to miss His call to trust in God and to live a life of faithfulness, gratitude and obedience.
There’s a story in 2 Chronicles chapter 25 where Amaziah was the king in Jerusalem. And he had hired an army from the northern kingdom for 100 talents of silver. I saw something that said that was maybe close to $2 million in today’s money. So he had hired this army from Israel, from the northern kingdom, but a man of God, a prophet, came to him and said, “O king, do not let the army of Israel go with you, for the Lord is not with Israel.” And Amaziah said to the man of God, “But what shall I do about the 100 talents of silver? What do I do about the money I’ve given to them?” And the prophet said, the man of God answered, “The Lord is able to give you much more than this.” “The Lord is able to give you much more than this.” And here is this man who had come to Jesus because he was concerned with an inheritance, he was concerned about his own family even, and in a sense, Jesus is saying to him, “I can give you much more than this.” Jesus is pointing the man, He’s pointing the crowds, His disciples, He’s pointing us to what’s really important.
And this chapter is packed with verses that are encouraging and challenging. There are verses that are powerful and profound. Listen to a few of them. Verse 29 and 30, “Do not be anxious about your life. Do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, nor be worried, for your Father knows that you need these things.” Verse 31, “Seek His kingdom and these things will be added to you.” Verse 32, “Fear not little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
I’ve told the story before about Martin Luther’s favorite preacher. Luther said that he had one preacher that he loved better than all the rest, and it was a little bird. It was a robin. And he said that this robin preached to him every day and every night Luther would put crumbs on the windowsill. And he said that the robin would hop up onto the windowsill whenever he was hungry and take some of the crumbs, as much as he needed. And Luther said, “From thence he always hops onto a little tree close by and lifts up his voice to God and sings his carol of praise and gratitude and tucks his little head under his wing and goes fast to sleep and leaves tomorrow to look after itself.” In other words, “Fear not.” God knows what you need. God knows what you need and He will take care of you.
But also, “Watch out.” Watch out for the danger of riches. Watch out for the coming of the Lord. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” “Be ready,” Jesus says. “Be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect and everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be expected.” These are some sobering warnings from Jesus in His parables. And He’s saying that a life of immediate gratification has eternal consequences. And a focus merely on the things of this life will bring God’s judgment. So don’t let the worries of this world distract us from the blessings of the kingdom of God.
I was part of a conversation recently about the importance of giving practical application in teaching and preaching. And I’ve been thinking about that conversation some over this past week. And my thoughts are that, “Yes, 100%.” Faithful teaching and preaching of God’s Word must include specific application to our lives. That God’s Word, the Bible speaks today to us, right now. So yes. But also, “Yes and no.” Because at the same time, isn’t there a burden on us as listeners to apply the message. The Holy Spirit has to be at work, and if we do not have the desire to search the Scriptures and to examine our lives to see how the Scriptures apply to our lives in those specific situations, then we’re probably not going to do the hard work of putting the application into practice in our lives. So there’s a burden on the teacher, but there’s a burden on the listener as well.
But then there’s this as well – I don’t know if people really want specific application. Because when it comes to specific application to what Jesus says, for us to guard our hearts against covetousness and worldliness – what does Jesus say? Verse 33, He says, “Sell your possessions and give to the needy.” Sell your possessions and give to the needy. Now it does not get any more specific than that. So what’s Jesus saying? He’s saying downsize your house and give the profit to the deacon’s mercy fund here at the church to help those who are needy in our city. Or do you have a storage unit that’s full of stuff somewhere? Sell it. Sell it and provide a scholarship to a student to the Day School or to Twin Lakes for someone who can’t afford to go to those places. Or maybe you’ve built up a collection in some way. Maybe it’s a collection of guns, a collection of wine or bourbon. Maybe it’s a collection of shoes or antiques or books. Sorry fellas, that’s for the fellow preachers in the room. What if you thinned out those collections and you gave the money to Gateway or to some other ministry in our church that serves the needs of the poor. See, I’m not sure that we really want that kind of application and I’m not sure how many of us will actually put that kind of application into practice, but what Jesus is teaching here is that important.
And it turns out that it’s also extremely urgent at the same time. He says in verse 50, He says, “I have a baptism to be baptized with and how great is my distress until it is accomplished.” You see, His baptism, He’s going to the cross; He’s going to take the wrath of God. He is going to take the punishment for our sins. And right before that, He says, “I came to cast fire on the earth.” That’s the next thing. He’s come to take the wrath of God for all those who rest in Jesus and place their faith in Him, but the next thing in God’s plan of salvation is Jesus coming in fire and to exact judgment. There is an urgency also to Jesus’ words here. This is more important and more urgent than any inheritance. It’s more important and more urgent even than family. And Jesus even gets into that and talks about the division that may come between those who choose Him and those who do not, even within one’s own family. But this is the good life. It’s a life of following Jesus as His disciple. It’s a life of looking to the heart and not to the externals. It’s a life of looking not just for right now but looking to eternity.
I don’t know if we have a lot of time to get into the connection with evangelism, but let me just make a few connections between this passage and evangelism as we’ve been doing on Sunday nights. And it’s this. It’s that following Jesus is a whole new way of life. And evangelism can’t just stop with evangelism. Evangelism isn’t about getting someone to a decision; it’s about making disciples. It’s about walking someone toward a whole new way of life. And John Leonard in his book I mentioned last week, Get Real, he says that we should “disciple unbelievers and evangelize believers.” Disciple unbelievers and evangelize believers. And what he’s saying by that is that basically there is a problem with our evangelism if it doesn’t also include following up with the process of discipleship. And at the same time, there is a problem with our discipleship if it does not include reaching out to others so that it just becomes a group that stays the same all the time. Discipleship must include outreach and evangelism and there’s a problem with our discipleship if it is not based on the message of evangelism. The heart, the foundation of our discipleship – our following Jesus and growing in grace and growing in the fruits of righteousness – it must be wholly based on the good news of the Gospel, of God’s love and grace for us in Christ Jesus from first to start. It doesn’t become about following a bunch of new rules now that we have become a Christian. It’s about living by the Gospel and out of gratitude to that, being obedient to God.
So let’s live the good life – life in Christ; life in God’s kingdom – and let’s lead others to do the same. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for the challenging words of Jesus in this passage, words that we may not have even come close to scratching the surface of all the implications and applications of them. So we ask that You would, by Your Spirit, take this message of Christ with us today, tonight, this week. Would You loosen our grip on earthly possessions. Would You change our focus from right in front of us to the eternal kingdom of God and what You are doing in the world around us. And would You help us to be involved and to participate in sharing that good news to those around us. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.